Aurum hits 5m at 11.07g/t gold outside current West African resource
Located at the northern end of a 13 kilometer long and 3 kilometer wide unexplored mineral corridor in the company’s southwestern US licence, the CIS2 target area hosts free-milled gold in a thick north-south trending sandstone unit surrounded by volcano-sedimentary rocks.
True widths for relatively shallow sections are estimated to be 65-80% of downhole lengths, and gold mineralization remains open along strike and at depth throughout all beds within the BDT2 deposit.
The mineralization is associated with an alteration-related mineral assemblage containing finely disseminated pyrite and hematite, silica, chlorite, tourmaline, thin quartz veins, albite and carbonate.
The current BDT2 resource contains a single specified resource envelope within a fairly large contiguous inferred resource block. The two smaller source zones are located ~500 m north of the main BDT2 deposit area.
The aggregate total from all resource areas in CIS2 is currently a healthy 21.4 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.7 g/t gold for approximately 482,000 ounces of gold.
Notably, the new hits fall outside the company’s current resource scope and provide a positive outlook for a resource upgrade to its overall BDT2 resource, which is expected as part of a major upgrade to the company’s projects by the first quarter of 2026.
The update will cover the majority of the extensive drilling undertaken throughout the year, targeting growth of 3.28 million ounces in Aurum’s existing Boundiali and Napié resource base.
Aurum has recently increased its drilling capacity by adding two more rigs and expanded its company-owned fleet to 12 rigs to better support its accelerated program of over 130,000 m for 2025 across the Boundiali project and the nearby separate Napié project, approximately 100 km south-east of Boundiali.
The resource update will inform a pre-feasibility study (PFS) for Boundiali, also scheduled for early Q1 CY2026, which will evaluate the economics and operational feasibility of the proposed open pit.
Aurum’s next steps will include approximately 100,000m of diamond drilling at Boundiali and will focus on increasing confidence and resource size in the BD, BM and BST deposits.
Other work will target new possibilities through soil anomalies and geological mapping, while also investigating new targets for next year’s exploration pipeline.
A 30,000 cubic meter drilling program to expand the 0.87Moz resource will also continue at Napié, and a mineral resource update is also planned for the first quarter of CY2026.
The company has approximately $45 million in cash (including unaudited Montage shares) on hand, which it says will fully fund currently planned research and development activities.
With mineralization evident, a seemingly unstoppable pipeline of solid gold exploration, an expanded drilling rig fleet, and ample financing, Aurum looks poised for further significant resource growth and new project milestones in the near future.
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